Hold On to Your Kids: Why Parents Need to Matter More Than Peers [Hardcover]

Gordon Neufeld (Author), Gabor Mate M.D. (Author)

Book Description

Release date: April 26, 2005

A psychologist with a reputation for penetrating to the heart of complex parenting issues joins forces with a physician and bestselling author to tackle one of the most disturbing and misunderstood trends of our time -- peers replacing parents in the lives of our children.

Dr. Neufeld has dubbed this phenomenon peer orientation, which refers to the tendency of children and youth to look to their peers for direction: for a sense of right and wrong, for values, identity and codes of behaviour. But peer orientation undermines family cohesion, poisons the school atmosphere, and fosters an aggressively hostile and sexualized youth culture. It provides a powerful explanation for schoolyard bullying and youth violence; its effects are painfully evident in the context of teenage gangs and criminal activity, in tragedies such as in Littleton, Colorado; Tabor, Alberta and Victoria, B.C. It is an escalating trend that has never been adequately described or contested until Hold On to Your Kids. Once understood, it becomes self-evident -- as do the solutions.

Hold On to Your Kids will restore parenting to its natural intuitive basis and the parent-child relationship to its rightful preeminence. The concepts, principles and practical advice contained in Hold On to Your Kids will empower parents to satisfy their children’s inborn need to find direction by turning towards a source of authority, contact and warmth.


Something has changed. One can sense it, one can feel it, just not find the words for it. Children are not quite the same as we remember being. They seem less likely to take their cues from adults, less inclined to please those in charge, less afraid of getting into trouble. Parenting, too, seems to have changed. Our parents seemed more confident, more certain of themselves and had more impact on us, for better or for worse. For many, parenting does not feel natural. Adults through the ages have complained about children being less respectful of their elders and more difficult to manage than preceding generations, but could it be that this time it is for real? -- from Hold On to Your Kids

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. Like countless other parents, Canadian doctors Neufeld and Maté woke up one day to find that their children had become secretive and unreachable. Pining for time with friends, they recoiled or grew hostile around adults. Why? The problem, Neufeld and co-writer Maté suggest, lies in a long-established, though questionable, belief that the earliest possible mastery of the rules of social acceptance leads to success. In a society that values its economy over culture, the book states, the building of strong adult/child attachments gets lost in the shuffle. Multiple play dates, day care, preschool and after school activities groom children to transfer their attachment needs from adults to their peers. They become what the authors call "peer oriented." The result is that they squelch their individuality, curiosity and intelligence to become part of a group whose members attend school less to learn than to socialize. And these same children are bullying, shunning and murdering each other, as well as committing suicide, at increasing rates. The authors' meticulous exploration of the problem can be profoundly troubling. However, their candidness and exposition lead to numerous solutions for reestablishing a caring adult hierarchy. Beautifully written, this terrific, poignant book is already a bestseller in Canada.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Review

"Hold on to Your Kids blows in from Canada like a Blue Northern, bringing us genuinely new ideas and fresh perspectives on parenting. The authors integrate psychology, anthropology, neurology and their own personal and professional experiences as they examine the 'context' of parenting today. This is a worthy book with practical implications for mom and dad."
—Dr. Mary Pipher, author of Reviving Ophelia and The Shelter of Each Other

"Hold on to Your Kids is visionary book that goes beyond the usual explanations to illuminate a crisis of unrecognized proportions. The authors show us how we are losing contact with our children and how this loss undermines their development and threatens the very fabric of sociey. Most importantly they offer, through concrete examples and clear suggestions, practical help for parents to fulfill their instinctual roles. A brilliant and well written book, one to be taken seriously, very seriously."
—Peter A. Levine Ph.D., International teacher and author of the best selling books: Waking the Tiger, Healing Trauma and It Won’t Hurt Forever, Guiding Your Child through Trauma

"The thoughts and perspectives presented by the authors are informative — even inspirational — for those who choose to dedicate their lives and energy to students."
—Bulletin of the National Association of Secondary School Principals

"With original insights on parent-child attachments and how parents can restore them, this is a book for revitalizing families and rekindling the song in their children’s hearts."
—Raffi, children’s troubadour, founder of Child Honoring Society Institute

"With simple ideas and steps, this book is directed not only to parents, but to all those — educators, social workers, counselors — whose lives and work bring them into contact with children."
—Quill & Quire

"Though this is Neufeld's personal theory, Maté (Scattered Minds, When the Body Says No) has expressed his colleague's ideas in precise and hard-hitting prose that makes complex ideas accessible without dumbing them down. The result is a book that grabs hard, with the potential to hit many parents where they live."
—The Edmonton Journal

"[M]ay serve as a loud wake-up call for mothers and fathers….this one offers what many of the others do not — that rare commodity known as common sense."
—Winnipeg Free Press

"With the benefit of 30 years of research and experience, Neufeld has crafted a coherent, compelling theory of child development that will cause an immediate frisson of recognition and acceptance in its readers. His approach has the power to change, if not save, the lives of our children."
—National Post

"The authors present doable strategies to help parents help their kids. If their advice is taken to heart, there’s hope there will be more warmth and security all round."
—The Georgia Straight

Praise for Scattered Minds by Gabor Maté, M.D.
"Rare and refreshing. . . . Here you will find family stories, an accessible description of brain development and sound information. You will also find hope."
—The Globe and Mail

"An utterly sensible and deeply moving book written for a general audience."
—The Vancouver Sun

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 304 pages
• Publisher: Ballantine Books; First Edition edition (April 26, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 037550821X
• ISBN-13: 978-0375508219
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (95 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #586,653 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

190 of 199 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A Must-Read for Parents, Teachers May 2, 2005

By Briana LeClaire

Format:Hardcover

I've never seen this book's ideas put quite this way before, nor explained so thoroughly. Its time has definitely come.

Neufeld and his wife Joy have at least five children (he sprinkles their names through the book - he never adds them up for us) and he's had what sounds like a distinguished career first treating juvenile offenders, and then moving into family counseling. The overarching theme of the book is ATTACHMENT. To whom are your children more attached? Are they attached to you, their parents, and other adults? Or are they attached to their peers? To whom do they look for guidance? Whose star have they hitched their little wagons to? If children look to adults for guidance, in Neufeld's terminology they are "parent-oriented". If they reject adults in favor of their peers, they are "peer-oriented".

This book explained to me how the relationship between parents (all adults, really) and children has changed in the larger culture. This cultural change has made it difficult to talk to my parents and in-laws about our decision to homeschool. (Neufeld isn't necessarily pro-homeschool - he's pro-adult attachments as opposed to peer attachments.) There have been times when I've been reduced to vague, indistinct clichés like, "Times have changed, so we're homeschooling." They've been too polite to say so, but I just know they're thinking, maybe times have changed, but children haven't, and so you're saying your children don't need regular school? Well, yes, that is what I'm saying, and this book explains why better than I can.

Neufeld spends a great deal of the book showing us how we've gone from a world where children used to be largely adult-oriented, to a world where everything in it, like day care for tiny children, longer school days, endless activities geared towards youths, and technology like cell phones and instant messaging, act like the Pied Piper, luring children away from adults and towards their peers. When children give the place in their hearts reserved for parents and parental figures to their peers - in other words, when they re-orient from adults to peers - they develop all sorts of neuroses that Neufeld describes for many chapters. These neuroses are so common, we've come to see them as normal childhood behavior. Often we think the results of peer-orientation are desirable, as shown in the following quote:

". . . (A)t least initially, peer-oriented children also tend to be more schoolable . . . . School takes children out of the home, separating parent-oriented children from the adults to whom they are attached. For such children the separation anxiety will be intense and the sense of disorientation at school will be acute . . . . (T)he elevated anxiety it provokes interferes with learning. Anxiety dumbs us down, lowering our functional I.Q. Being alarmed affects our ability to focus and to remember. Anxiety makes it difficult to read the cues and follow directions. A child simply cannot learn well when feeling lost and alarmed.

"Children already peer-oriented by the time they enter school do not face such a dilemma. In the first days of school in kindergarten, a peer-oriented child would appear smarter, more confident, and better able to benefit from the school experience. The parent-oriented child, impaired by separation anxiety would, by contrast, appear to be less adept and capable - at least until he can form a good attachment with a teacher. . . . (I)n the short term, peer orientation appears to be a godsend. And it is undoubtedly this dynamic that research taps into when discovering the benefits to early education.

"In the long term . . . the positive effects on learning of reduced anxiety and disorientation will gradually be canceled by the negative effects of peer orientation. Thus follows the research evidence that early advantages of preschool education are not sustainable over time. Peer-oriented kids go to school to be with their friends, not to learn. If these friends are also not into learning, academic performance will slip. When children go to school to be with one another, they are primed only to learn enough not to stand out, to remain with those their own age. Other than that, learning is irrelevant and can even be a liability to peer relationships." (236-7)

Stay with me for a shorter quote, just down the page from the above:

"Interestingly, home-schoolers are now the favored applicants of some big-name universities. According to Jon Reider, admissions official at Stanford University in California, they are desirable applicants because "home-schoolers bring certain skills - motivation, curiosity, the capacity to be responsible for their education - that high school don't induce very well." In other words, preschooled kids may have to best head start, but home-schooled kids have the best finish, because in our educational system we have neglected the crucial role of attachment." (237-8)

There's his favorite word - attachment - again. Which brings me to my only criticism of this book: I wish he'd written it in English, instead of social science. The book is full of nominalizations: "integrative functioning", "orienting void" (a/k/a "orientation void" - a twofer!), "individuation", "socialization". He does provide definitions and a glossary, but referring to it is distracting. This is a pretty minor quibble, however, and doesn't take away from the book's importance.

Bottom line: get a copy for anyone who spends a lot of time around children, because they need to know what they're up against. It's an emergency.

134 of 146 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars A radically different parenting book, but not totally convincing September 1, 2005

By Suzanne Amara VINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover

I must say this book does stand on in that it presents a radically different view of parenting than most books I've read. It holds that the most important thing for kids is a very strong relationship with their parents, and that almost all of the woes of today's kids are caused by them being peer oriented instead of parent oriented. The authors make a very strong case for this being so. I was convinced by the time this part of the book was over. However, as with many books of this type, the section where we are told what to do about this problem is weaker. Most of the ideas would work best with a very young child that has not yet become peer oriented. If you already have a child who is rebellious and addicted to being with peers, I don't think that speaking to them kindly and looking them in the eyes is going to do much. The author gave an example with his own children of taking them away on a week's vacation with just the child and the parent. That sounds good, but I don't think his children had the severe problems of the other examples we are given.

The book also has the perspective of parents that are caring, kind, loving and have their childrens' best interests at heart. I know parents who read parenting books are more likely to fit this perspective, but I kept thinking that not all parents are that completely wonderful. I think many a child has been saved from a childhood that would otherwise be hellish BY their friends. The author also feels children's friendships are not really true friendships, that they are not mature enough to have true friendships. I respect their courage to say that peer relationships are not as important as we are always led to believe. But I do think that childhood friendships can be true ones. I know I still am very, very close with at least 3 of my friends from young childhood, and I can say looking back that our friendship was true from the start.

I don't mean to overly dispute the message in this book. I think it's an extremely well written and brave book, and I will be influenced by the ideas presented here very much. I just think it's like most ideas taken to the extreme---they fall apart a bit when this is the case. But I do want to thank the authors for presenting this view of parenting. It is going to play a part in my decision whether or not to homeschool my oldest child.

Definately worth a read!

58 of 61 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Awesome! August 15, 2005

By Mary Ostyn

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

As an avid reader and a mom of 8 kids ages 0-18, I have read a ton of good parenting books, and this one is a new addition to my Top-5 list. It explains the foundational importance of attachment so clearly and also explains why there are so many troubled kids these days. This book give insights for all parents, working or not, whether your kids are 2 or 15, public-schooled or homeschooled, biological or adopted. To safeguard our kids, they need to be willing to value parental input *over* that from friends, and this books explains exactly how to keep them hearing us. I got this book from the library, but I am buying it so I can read it again and also loan it to all my friends and relatives. Dynamite.